.jpg)
The following article is published in Occupational therapy international:
Sleeping difficulties are common in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Meeting children with difficulties with emotional regulation and/or families experiencing struggles in their night-time routines and maladaptive activities connected to sleep is common in pediatric occupational therapy practice.
A sleep intervention with weighted blankets was designed to increase current understanding of using weighted blankets to target children’s individual needs in connection with sleep and daytime functioning. We have recently published an article that is available on the subject in Occupational Therapy International.
An explorative qualitative design in which 26 children with ADHD and sleeping difficulties were included, 6-15 years old, were interviewed about participating in a sleep intervention with weighted blankets.
Children’s experiences revealed that the use of weighted blankets:
1) requires a commitment
2) improves emotional regulation
3) changes sleeping patterns
4) promotes everyday participation
Using weighted blankets promoted children’s management of daily life with ADHD and sleeping difficulties. We can thus improve the assessment and delivery of weighted blankets tailored to individual needs based on increased knowledge from the children themselves.
This article is part of a larger project, and is the first article in my Phd project about weighted blankets effect on children with ADHD.
The article can be found:
https://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/oti/2023/1945290.pdf
Please feel free to contact me if you want to connect on the subject of sleep and weighted blankets. Or share your views and thoughts below =)
/Maria Lönn, Occupational Therapist with an interest in mental health and sleep
I have found that adults diagnosed with ADHD also benefit from the use of weighted blankets to sleep. Not only that, people with no diagnosis and sleep challenges can also benefit. I wonder if broader research could help the general population.
Those weighted blankets are great, we used it at work for a kid with autism. He fell asleep way easier and sleept through. Some people experience a feeling of safety through those blankets, I think that it might have been the case with him as well.
It's a great research study of sleep patterns in ADHD group of children. In today's fast pace life most of the children need calm and good sleep to improve their overall brain devlopment and thus improving their efficiency in their studies and other day to day activities.
Apart from ADHD kids other kids can also benefit from this use of weighted blankets for quality sleep and good performance in every phase of their life.
Further to add is that we have to monitor whether the respiration is not affected by using these blankets. Like in children with Asthma or any other associated risk like COPD or any other issues like claustrophobia.
This works equally well for adults!
We initially purchased for my son to help him calm when distressed.The weighted blanket feels like a hug in a duvet, placing pressure on the whole body!
I also (undiagnosed adhd adult) use this for when I need to feel grounded and it helps me stop my over stimulated head!
This is a fantastic new piece in The OT Journal Club @Maria! Thank you for sharing it here with OTs, OTAs and students around the world - and for getting the Club going again! We will bring this to the attention of Members in the coming days via social networks - and then include it in March's newsletter. We look forward to seeing the conversation grow.
This is really interesting, thank you so much for sharing. Sleep is really important and something so many of the children at my school struggle with.